The history of the Kuki insurgency in Manipur

■ The history of the Kuki insurgency in Manipur 

✅Just before the first of the two phases of the Assembly Elections went underway in Manipur, all insurgent group; associated with the Kuki tribes in Manipur said they will vote for a particular political party. 

● Who are the Kukis? 

✅The Kukis are an ethnic group including multiple tribes originally inhabiting the North-Eastern states of India such as Manipur, Mizoram and Assam; parts of Burma (now Myanmar), and Sylhet district and Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh.

 

✅While Kuki is not a term coined by the ethnic group itself the tribes associated with it came to be generically call Kuki under colonial rule. 

✅In Manipur, the various Kuki tribes, living mainly in the hills, currently make up 30% of the total 28.5 lakh population of the State. 

● Their ethnicity 

✅The rest of the population of Manipur is made up mainly of two other ethnic groups the Meiteis or non-tribal, Vaishnavite Hindus who live in the valley region of Manipur, and the Naga tribes, historically at loggerhead With the Kukis, also living in the hilly areas of the State. 

● What led to the Kuki insurgencies in Manipur? 

✅The Kuki insurgent groups have been under Suspension of Operation (Soo) since 2005, when they signed an agreement for the same with the Indian Army. 

✅2008: the groups entered a tripartite agreement with the State government of Manipur and the UPA led Central 

government to temporarily suspend their operations and give political dialogue a chance. 

✅Manipur, formerly a princely state including parts of Burma, made the accession into India after Independence, but was only made a full-fledged State in 1972. 

✅The resentment over the "forceful" inclusion into India and delay in granting statehood led to the rise of various insurgent movements. 

✅The problem was intensified after Manipur was declared a 'distubed area' in 1980, under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to the military and has led to excesses. 

✅Post-independence insurgent movements in Manipur, carried out by valley-based groups or Meiteis, can be traced back to around the 1960s, when various groups demanded self-determination and separate statehood for Manipur, inspired by left ideology.

● Roots of the insurgency 

✅The roots of Kuki militancy lie in conflicts of ethnic identity. 

✅Demand for self-determination solely for groups belonging to their ethnic fabric

✅The second reason for insurgency lies in the inter-community conflicts between the Kukis and the Nagas in Manipur. 

✅The community could not shed internal differences between tribes and take a single line of action. 

✅While some militant Kuki outfits demanded Kukiland, including parts which are not in India, some demanded Kukiland within India. 

✅The Kuki-Naga conflict was started over securing identity and land as some Kuki inhabited areas coincided with Naga inhabited areas. 

✅Wanting to dominate trade and cultural activities in those areas the two communities often engaged in violent standoffs, with vilages being torched, civilians killed and so on. 

✅Even though clashes have reduced in recent decades, tensions between the two ethnic groups still exist. 

● Where do the Kukis stand today? 

✅The temporary SoO agreements were made to start political dialogue about giving some form of self-determination to the Kukis, but that has not happened, both under the UPA or NDA governments. 

✅The SoO has been extended by the Government almost every year since 2008, with Kuki outfits threatening to 

breach the agreement by taking up arms again and boycotting the Government. 

✅The SoO agreement was last extended by current government last year 

✅It has to be seen how the current government plans to resolve the insurgency and settle Kuki political aspirations as the more than 50% Meitei population of the State, has always been against Kuki and Naga demands for self-determination, as they fear it would undermine Manipur's territorial integrity.